Facilities Management Department

On January 6th, 2017, three recreation employees exemplified quick thinking and safety in action, when they swiftly cleared the pool and change rooms after a chemical incident occurred in one of pool pump rooms.

Peter Reed, an Environmental, Health and Safety Consultant with MRU awarded Elene Otte, Katlyn McKenna, and Rebecca Deobald with Safety Recognitions.

 

At Mount Royal University we believe everyone gets to go home safe and we would like to recognize these employees for reinforcing our safety culture.

 

 

For more information on Environmental Health and Safety, please check out our website -https://www.mtroyal.ca/FacilitiesManagement/EnvironmentalHealthSafety/index.htm

 

MRU at the Leading Edge of Disinfecting Technology!

Health and wellness are top priorities at Mount Royal University!

Finding the most effective measure to safeguard our campus is an ongoing job for the Environmental Services team (formally Custodial).  The ByoPlanet E-mist system delivers an electrostatically charged mist that reaches every nook and cranny and sticks to surfaces for the most effective disinfection possible. This new system is ideal for areas with several touch surfaces and hard to reach places like the Fitness Center.

Environmental Services is currently using the new E-mist technology to ensure large exam areas are thoroughly disinfected!

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Check out the YouTube video below to learn more about the science behind E-mist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vys0WjjAtg

 

Working with Severe Weather

A day in the life of a Facilities Management team member…

The rain was coming down hard and lighting had struck – it was a perfect storm that passed through Calgary on Tuesday June 28, 2016 at approximately 4:00pm. Severe weather is one of the many considerations that the Facilities Management team manages.

Lightning hit two 15 year old poplar trees on the Mount Royal Campus. The bark was stripped from the trees and as a result, the Grounds crew had them removed and are now working towards getting them replaced.  The torrential rain pour caused 2 leaks in B-Wing where a current roofing project is taking place and a third leak above The Hub in Wykham House.

Did you know: The Mount Royal campus has 900,000 square feet of roofing!

Quick thinking and years of experience led Director of Engineering Services (Facilities Management), Kim McKellar, to work with the roofing contractor to rapidly pump the water from the B-Wing and use a piece of wood cleverly to stop the leak above The Hub.

What’s Next?

A ‘severe weather’ procedure has since been put in place for Security to have contractor information on hand should a similar situation happen during off hours. The Building Operations (Facilities Management) team is currently working on permanent fixes to effected areas off the roof.

When severe weather hits Calgary, the Facilities Management team has all hands on deck to minimize any disruption to the campus.

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Vandalism on MRU Grounds

We’ve been busy planting trees this fall to replace those destroyed in last September’s freak snowstorm.  On the weekend someone took it upon themselves to destroy three of those new trees.

 

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Building Codes Where Strict In 1772 BCE

§229-232 – If a builder build a house for a man and do not make its construction firm, and the house which he has built collapse and cause the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death. If it cause the death of a son of the owner of the house, they shall put to death a son of that builder. If it cause the death of a slave of the owner of the house, he shall give the owner of the house a slave of equal value. If it destroy property, he shall restore whatever it destroyed, and because he did not make the house which he built firm and it collapsed, he shall rebuild the house which collapsed from his own property (i.e., at his own expense). [1]

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[1]  The Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon  (1904) by Hammurabi, translated by Robert Francis Harper, Original work, c. 1772 BCE; translation published in 1904.

MRU Indoor Temperature Guidelines

Mount Royal University –  Indoor Temperature Management Guidelines (November 30, 2014)

 

OBJECTIVE:

The Mount Royal University Indoor Temperature Management Guideline provides a framework to assist Physical Resources and buildings occupants in jointly achieving a healthy, productive, and safe working environment while reducing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions to the lowest practicable level.

MANAGEMENT GUIDELINE:

  • During the winter heating season, occupied spaces will be heated to 22°C.
  • During the summer cooling season, occupied spaces will be cooled to 24.5°C.

PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS:

Due to frequent, extreme, and rapid temperature swings in the Calgary area there will be unavoidable transitional periods when indoor temperatures fall outside of these ranges.

This is particularly challenging in the spring and fall ‘swing seasons’ when Physical Resources transitions the building equipment from cooling to heating and vice versa.  To complicate matters further, actual temperature may vary due to the wide range of space types, occupancy levels, and access to daylight on campus.

The existence of transition periods is an unfortunate reality in a prairie climate system.

COMMENTS:

These space temperature ranges are based on established standards for human comfort, productivity and safety and are modeled after policies implemented in major universities across North America.  The Mount Royal University approach has been modeled after the program in Harvard University in Boston.

Mount Royal will periodically evaluate the Indoor Temperature Management Guideline based on improvements to building systems and feedback from occupants.

We look forward to working with everyone to create a comfortable, energy conserving and sustainable environment. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the Associate Vice President, Physical Resources at 403.440.6419.

 

Mount Royal University Temperature Policy 2014

Can You Compare MRU Electrical Consumption To An Average Home?

If you assume an average sized house in 2,000 square feet then Mount Royal is equivalent to 1,252 homes. Now consider that Mount Royal University uses 25,277,769 kilowatts of electricity every year and that an average home uses 7,200 kilowatts.

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That means MRU uses as much electricity as 3,511 homes.  In other words, we use 2.8 times more electricity than an average house on a per square foot basis.